What's the NEWS

• Meghalaya became the first state in India to ensure the conservation of water and have own water policy following a nod given by the State Cabinet.
• The draft policy was approved by the State Cabinet in a meeting chaired by Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma.

Know! more about this water policy

• The objective of the policy is to recognize water resources as a common pool resource, to provide safe and hygienic water for drinking, domestic and sanitation and livelihood development to all residents of the state.
• The draft State Water Policy which seeks to protect and improve management of water resources while actively involving the community.
• It also aims at ensuring protection and conservation of catchment areas of all water sources to prevent degradation of the quantity and quality of water sources.
• The implementation of the policy will be through active participation of the community by constituting a Water Sanitation Village Council at the village level.
• The state policy outlines several measures like construction of check dams to conserve rainwater, setting up of rainwater harvesting systems, and proper ways to control improper use of groundwater.
• The policy also suggests safety audit of state dams at periodic intervals by the Meghalaya State Dam Safety Organisation (SDSO) to identity the safety risks and mitigate the adverse impacts.
• The policy intends to protect and conserve the catchment areas of water sources like rivers with an aim to avert the degradation of both quantity and quality of these sources.

Space Awareness
Chandrayaan-2 Mission

Relevance IN - Prelims ( all about chandrayaan-2) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of space)
What's the NEWS

• Chandrayaan-2 mission soon will be launched from the Satish Dhawan space centre in Sriharikota.

Why to explore the South pole of the moon

• ISRO believe that there is a possibility of presence of water in that area.
• ISRO's lunar mission that will discover that area of the Moon where no country has ever visited before.
• The lunar South Pole is quite interesting as this lunar surface area always remains in shadow.
• It is also believed as much larger than that at the North Pole.
• Possibility of presence of water is very high in that side of moon which is also called shadowed areas.
• In addition, South Pole region has craters that are cold traps and contain a fossil record of the early Solar System.
• Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to soft land the lander -Vikram and rover- Pragyan in a high plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of about 70° south.

ISRO's heavy rocket

• ISRO's heavy-lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle - Mark III (GSLV Mk III), is nicknamed as 'Baahubali'.
• It will carry Chandrayaan-2 to the Moon. It is all gearing up for the historic launch. Rs. 375 crore GSLV Mk III rocket will fly about 16 minutes and put into orbit the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft.

Three segments of Chandryaan-2 Mission
1. Orbiter:

• At the time of launch, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter will be capable of communicating with Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu as well as the Vikram Lander.
• One year is total life of Orbiter and it will be placed in a 100X100 km lunar polar orbit for this lunar mission.

2. Lander - Vikram:

• The Lander of Chandrayaan 2 is named Vikram after Dr Vikram A Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme. It is designed to function for one lunar day, which is equivalent to about 14 Earth days. The Lander is designed to execute a soft landing on the lunar surface.

3. Rover - Pragyan:

• Chandrayaan 2's Rover is a 6-wheeled robotic vehicle named Pragyan, which translates to 'wisdom' in Sanskrit. It can travel up to 500m and leverages solar energy for its functioning. It can only communicate with the Lander.

State Specific
Kharchi Puja

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Kharchi puja)
What's the NEWS

• Kharchi Puja is an important festival celebrated in the Indian state of Tripura.
• The holiday is observed on the Shukla Paksha Ashtami (eighth lunar day) day in the month of Ashad, which usually means it takes place in July.

Traditions of Kharchi Puja

• The festival lasts for seven days and 14 gods are worshipped at the Chaturdasha temple near Old Agartala. The festival began on 10 July will continue till 16 July 2019.
• The 14 deities are known as the Chaturdasha Devata and are Lord Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswathi, Kartikeya, Ganesha, Earth, Ganga, Agni, Kama, Himavan and Varuna.
• On day of Puja, 14 gods are carried to Saidra river by members of chantai where gods are bathed in holy water and are brought back to temple.
• Kharchi is derived from ‘khya' which means ‘earth' and the festival marks the cleansing of Ama Pechi which is the female cycle of the earth goddess. During the festival, no ploughing, furrowing or tending to the soil is done to give it time to cleanse.
• The festival of Ker Puja takes place in Tripura two weeks after Kharchi Puja.

Defence
Defence Ministry signs MoU with IPFC
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about IPFC and NRDC and mission Raksha gyan shakti)
What's the NEWS

• Intellectual Property Facilitation Cell (IPFC), Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence and National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), Ministry of Science and Technology signed an MoU with a vision to bridge the capacity shortfall and provide a major fillip to the ongoing efforts of Ministry of Defence towards promoting a culture of Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights IPR in Indian Defence industry.

Know! more about the MoU and its benefits

• The move will be a boost to the Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti. It may be recalled that Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti was launched with the aim to inculcate IP culture in Indian defence manufacturing ecosystem.
• The partnership between IPFC and NRDC is expected to bridge capacity shortfall and provide a major fillip to ongoing efforts of MoD towards promoting a culture of Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Indian Defence industry.

Know! about Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti

• It was launched with aim to inculcate Intellectual Property (IP) culture in Indian Defence manufacturing ecosystem.
• Under the mission, an Intellectual Property Facilitation Cell (IPFC) has been established under aegis of Directorate General Quality Assurance (DGQA).
• Within a short span of a year IPFC has achieved challenging target of training over 12,000 personnel on IPR and facilitating filing of over 1000 new IPR applications.

Know! about National Research Development Corporation

• It was established by Government of India in 1953 with an objective to promote, develop and commercialise technologies, know-how, patents, inventions and processes emanating from various national R&D institutions or Universities.
• It is presently working under administrative control of Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, Union Ministry of Science & Technology.

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